


Relic

by Deastrumquodvicis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:45:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deastrumquodvicis/pseuds/Deastrumquodvicis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't only the obvious meaning of an object that strikes to the heart of a detective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relic

Funny, the things a possession can tell about a man’s interests.  Oh, not the face value, obviously, although that too, but rather the history of an antique.  While a man like Sherlock Holmes refuses to acknowledge that the history of an artifact can be just as appealing as the artifact itself (sentiment, you understand), it doesn’t mean that to point it out to him would be making an error.  Quite the opposite.  Things have meanings, history has meanings.

Take, for instance, the antique binoculars which Sherlock has in his flat.  Why would a man like Sherlock have them if not for sentimental reasons?  Surely, with his (hidden) wealth, he could easily acquire a new pair, binoculars with better optics or something a little less likely to break?  Or if he was insistent on an antique, he could find someone to restore it?  But here they sat, and indeed, on more than one occasion, had been used to spy on unsuspecting neighbours until John told him off.  If anyone had asked, Sherlock would have said they were just one of those trinkets he’d collected over the years and didn’t have any special attachment to, but, as was occasionally the case, he’d be lying.  The truth was, they were symbolic.  Why else would he display them so prominently in a workspace that rarely required them?

Those little binoculars were relics, a reminder that when hope seemed lost, one could still fight through to the other side of the darkness.  They’d survived not one but two World Wars, and though you wouldn’t know to look at them, they’d been in battle, they’d helped Sherlock’s French great-grandfather put his foot down against the Nazis, they’d helped say no to a tyrant when few others would out of fear, out of pressure, out of occasional laziness.  Something Sherlock had always admired.  Maybe that was why he’d asked for them when Raoul Chevalier had passed away.  Or maybe he just liked the brass and simplistic styling.

It helped that Sherlock had a fondness for Victoriana, too, the binoculars having been made in the 1890s.  Wallpaper, architecture, linguistic patterns, even fashion, on occasion, caught Sherlock’s attention.  The binoculars were just one example and perhaps one of the most tangible.  A little quirk about a very unusual man.  One of many.  John was going to miss it, really, the things that reminded him of Sherlock, the sounds and smells and sights that had plastered 221B before John had ever moved in.  But he had to move on, had to close up the doors of his heart that he’d left open to his best friend. Even the rain would be different now.  John would always feel the dripping and think of Sherlock’s last words, the plunge, the crunch of bone on concrete.  His chest clenched, breathing in the air that had somehow thickened, and with a stoic nod, he sighed, packing his things up.  He left Sherlock’s, not quite sure why, but something told him to leave them precisely where they were.  Even (and especially) the binoculars, gathering dust as they sat on the desk of a man who was far more secretly sentimental than anyone would have guessed.


End file.
